Sunday, April 27, 2014

Ok now less than a week until Beltane and down the mountain the trees bloom, it rains and is still a bit cold. Perfect Spring.

Fast paced bursting forward of shoots and bugs and buds We watch the lilac leaves grow daily, the forsythia yellow and the landscape come to color. Birds everywhere, the brook rushes loud. It makes you want to dance with joy on our Earth.

Though we woke to ice and snow in NYC last week and had leftover snow here for a few days, the fields of growing greenness replaced the endless white of this month since equinox. Just as the blooming land and birds were like a dream so too now the frozen landscape is a memory. It is real Spring, cool mornings and warm afternoons bursts of activity and life. Finally.

equinox sunrise

equinox morning

We gathered as families and individuals, some without their children and new folks with toddlers. Our kid is here always even if he would rather be elsewhere.

Every day since our gathering I think of the simple happiness (or honest sadness) of the young ones.

I believe it was the child energy as direct connection with spirit that finally brought our Springtime back, that helped to melt the piles of snow, that encouraged the flowers to bloom.

snow and sacrifice and waters and fire

Notes from the day of our Equinox ritual:The forgotten sound of the rushing stream.While the family sleeps, I start the day: Kitchen cleaning, boiling eggs, finding balance on schedule, including time for coffee and sitting balancing all- mom, cleaner, cook, bookkeeper, nurse, friend- being quiet and saying thanks on self-structured time letting go balancing wood, stacked against the wind finding where to help, where to be silent.

small children arrive and declare “Hi!” the universal welcome of openness. The smiles of children as another dimension.

Eagle in the east birds & friends many cooks letting go.

Grumpy older kid finding balance between toys and joy and new distractions. making him cut strawberries. the delightfulness of small trucks.

The light in the well, the poof of herbs in the fire others cooking in the kitchen. Just showing up is sacrifice

Our ancestors-dead people- closer to us than the birds, calling in a favor, watching over us

Children laughing in the snow fort Sun gathering strength

Down to the last drop One with the Earth

The connection between the dark ground and the shining sun overhead feel yourself balanced.

So quickly the bird songs and the stream become normal, regular sounds of our day, not the magic of newness, though always magical. I am grateful for this outside season. I am grateful to be able to pray for our good health, for our safety and the safety of others, for a healthy planet and for clarity of purpose. Grateful for the beauty around us each day, for the moon and the sun rising and shining and setting. Grateful for friends and family and art and nature.

so much gratitude to offer and so little time. Spring.

Our Omens:

Sowelu or the Sun! Gibor or gift Raido or communication Tiwaz- truth or balance

Bryan pulled virtue cards to remind us

Hospitality is the Sowelu Perseverance is the Gibor Fertility is the Raido Wisdom is the Tiwaz